“Man is immersed in dreams… He lives in sleep… He is a machine. He cannot stop the flow of his thoughts, he cannot control his imagination, his emotions, his attention… He does not see the real world. The real world is hidden from him by the wall of imagination.”

I’ve written an overview of Georges Gurdjieff’s ideas and influence – you can read it here

‘THIS IS THE GREAT EVIL-DESTROYING CHANT OF MAHA KALI MAA. USE IT FOR YOUR REGULAR KALI WORSHIP TO DEFEAT NEGATIVE ENERGIES & INFLUENCES IN YOUR LIFE AND IF YOU HAVE FAITH IN THE GODDESS KALI SHE WILL HELP YOU ALWAYS. CHANT HER HOLY MANTRA: “OM-KREEM-KALIKAYE-NAMAH”.’

Richel lived in Amsterdam, and according to the Museum was a humble man with a big smile and a passion for the occult and ritual magic.

Richel’s collection came via his father-in-law, a Mr Eldermans, head of a sex magickal org called the ‘Ars Amatoria’, or A.A. This may or may not have been related to Aleister Crowley’s order the A.A., which depending on who you talk to, may or may not have stood for Argenteum Astrum, the Silver Star. There may have been some overlap between the two orders, while both Richel and Eldermans were involved with another group, the M.M., about which nothing much is known.

Much of the Eldermans collection was destroyed before Richel could save it and unfortunately the index was burnt.

You can also buy a beautiful – and justly, fabulously expensive – book of some of the Richel-Eldermans images, The Occult Reliquary, assembled by Daniel Schulke and Three Hands Press – here’s a glimpse.

Phil Hine remembers the occult ‘zine (only 93p!) that set the scene for the modern magician in the ’70s and ’80s, and also heralded a new era of persecution – this time trial by media – for British witches.

From the first issue of the LOT, there was a regular contributor writing about various aspects of Witchcraft under the pen name of “Galadriel”. Galadriel’s first article basically pointed out that for the most part, “modern wicthcraft” was mostly made up – but that there was a hereditary tradition of which Galadrial was an iniitate. This article drew counter-responses from both Raymond Buckland and Alex Sanders. Undeterred, Galadriel followed through with an article in issue 3 of LOT claiming that those of the “hereditary clans” do advocate cursing enemies, and even more controversially in issue 4, with the claim that Galadriel’s clan practice both animal sacrifice (at feast times) and human sacrifice (actually a ritual form of voluntary suicide). This was strong stuff, particularly when you consider that this was 1981.